I realize this is very outdated information, but cannot resist.  On my first trip to Rome some forty-plus years ago my family (two parents and five children) stayed at the YWCA.  We had dinner every night in the basement restaurant where everyone a different kind of spaghetti every night.  Except me.  I had a plain, lightly spaghetti each night for a week.  We stayed in room 409. (I know this because a couple years ago we cleaned out a kitchen drawer of misc and the key was still there.) When we left the taxi driver got all seven of us and our luggage in one vehicle.  Of course when we got back to the States the American taxi driver refused to do such a thing and required us to take two station wagons.  (The Italian cabbie got everything in one VW bug.)  Double to taxi bill.  When my father then went out to get us a new car the dealer didn't know how to handle a deal with the whole amount paid by check (cashier's).  

Culture shock?  Coming back to the States definitely was!

Holly Mills
VA